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Ovaj ljekarnik uvijek preporuči dobar analgetik.

Ovaj ljekarnik uvijek preporuči dobar analgetik.
This pharmacist always recommends a good painkiller.
From Lesson 418:At the Pharmacy·Croatian

Questions & Answers about Ovaj ljekarnik uvijek preporuči dobar analgetik.

Why is the perfective verb preporuči used here in the present tense with uvijek (always)?
You might expect the imperfective preporučuje for a repeated action, which is also correct. However, using the perfective present with a frequency word like uvijek emphasizes the successful completion of the action every time. It carries the nuance of 'he always manages to recommend' or 'he never fails to recommend.'
Why does the accusative phrase dobar analgetik look exactly like the nominative?
The masculine accusative case changes depending on whether the noun is alive (animate) or an object (inanimate). Because analgetik is an inanimate object, its accusative form stays identical to the nominative. If it were a living thing, you would use the animate ending: dobrog.
Are there other common words for ljekarnik and analgetik?
Yes. For the pharmacist, you will very often hear apotekar, which comes from apoteka (pharmacy). For the medicine, while analgetik is widely used, people frequently use the descriptive phrase lijek protiv bolova (medicine against pains).
The root word for medicine is lijek. Why is it spelled with lje in ljekarnik?
This is a classic Croatian spelling change. When a word with a long ije gets a suffix that makes the word longer, the ije sound often shortens to je. You start with lijek, but the related words become ljekarna (pharmacy) and ljekarnik (pharmacist).

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